The Courage to Fail – Rewiring Your Life with Imthiaz Ghulam

Imthiaz Ghulam is the first person to admit that his life has been shaped by failure. “I’m somebody who made every single mistake you could think of under the sun. Failed at pretty much everything I’ve ever tried.”

But for Imthiaz, failure isn’t something to hide from – it’s something to harness, especially when it comes to business.

“I’m like a big believer that failure is the path to success. One million percent.

“But most people avoid failure, so they never have the success.”

Imthi grew up in a poor, majority Asian Muslim area on the outskirts of a city centre. He was academically gifted, but soon became disillusioned with the system.

“I did well up until a certain point where I thought: “I don’t believe in this, I can’t get behind it.” From an early age, he lost trust in education, refusing to believe that someone could live a life that they truly wanted to life from within the system.

“So I failed at that.”

Naturally outspoken and with a propensity to question the status pro, his rebellious streak led to trouble at school and beyond.

“Telling teachers they haven’t got a clue what they’re doing, questioning what I was being taught, being punished for that. I was always playing devil’s advocate. And that isn’t rewarded within the school system or any system.”

With few legitimate opportunities in sight, Imthi turned to the streets.

“We grew up on essentially on an estate. As kids, we’d see things we liked on the TV and  on music videos, and we couldn’t have those things. The only way for me that I could see being able to get that sort of lifestyle and success was doing nefarious things.”

And that, of course, got him in more serious trouble.

At the age of 15, he started selling cannabis.

Then he moved on to dealing cocaine. “I started selling a bit of weed, and made bit of money. Before long, I owed some dangerous people some significant amounts of money. I thought I’d learned my lesson, but then I start dabbling in cocaine.”

Imthi started ‘climbing the ladder’, as he puts it, and for a while, he enjoyed the trappings of street success.

“I was changing my car every month, had a Rolex on my wrist – I really thought I’d made it. You become like a walking billboard advertising what you’re doing. I’d go into a rave and I’d want people to look at me and want what I had.”

But beneath the surface, life was chaotic and dangerous.

“There’s a lot of looking over your shoulder in that space. Even in terms of relationships, you’re always afraid. You’re always falling out with one person and then making friends with another one. It was all too chaotic in the end.”

Eventually, the law caught up with him.

“Somebody owed some money and he got a bit of a kicking and had his car taken off him. He then went and told someone, they went to the police, we were all under surveillance.

“Before I knew it, the thread unravelled.”

Imthi was sitting at home with two kilos of coke on the table in front of him when the doors flew off. At first, he thought he was being robbed; then he saw the truncheons and realised he was being arrested.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to over seven years, serving half in custody, and half in the community.

“Those few days before I actually got out of prison were the scariest of my life. I actually remember crying because after seven years inside, I was going into the unfamiliar.

“It was a world I didn’t know.”

Initially, he felt inspired to change – to do positive things instead of negative things. But then he began to question who he was, and what followed was a violent internal battle between his old and new selves.

“It was the ego and the alter ego, going to war every night.”

Eventually, he reached a turning point.

Prison had forced him to confront himself with brutal honesty.

“My viewpoint on what success looked like changed. All those thoughts about where I’d failed in my personal life, who I’d let down, they come to the forefront when I was sat in a prison cell on my own.

“You really regret some of the s**t you’ve done. The way that you let people down, the way you spoke to people, the way that you made them feel.”

Imthi realised he needed to change.

Not just for himself, but for the world around him.

He asked himself one question – was the world a better place with him in it, or a worse place?

“That’s what made me think you can’t really go through life just giving a f**k about yourself and not being able to help anyone, not being able to impact anyone positively.”

For Imthi, regret, though profoundly painful, was the catalyst for change. He began by confronting his own character.

And that came with a total ego death.

“I had to realise how much of a piece of s**t I was. Because when I listed the stuff I’d done in my life that was positive compared to things that were negative, I was a piece of s**t. So I started figuring out how to change that.

Reconnecting with his faith provided the foundation for rebuilding his life. His relationship with God was the first thing he rectified, reminding himself that as a Muslim, Islam was the religion of personal development.

“I know it gets a bad rap in the press for one reason or another.

“But if you really look at it, it’s the religion of personal development, of self-improvement.”

Faith gave him structure, humility, and a new sense of purpose. He also learned that true status and leadership comes from serving others.

“You can be the main character only if everyone else decides you’re the main character.

“And the only way you can actually become that character is by having a positive effect on the group.”

Through his coaching practice, Imthi now works with mostly male business owners to help them find meaning and capability in their own lives.

“My purpose is to create a society where men are capable and useful for themselves and their families, for the benefit of society as a whole.

“Men have become soft over time.

“And they’re lazier than they’ve ever been. They’re making excuses more than they have ever done and they’re not stepping up to what they should be.”

Imthi believes fulfilment comes from usefulness and purpose, not comfort or fleeting happiness.

“Happiness is fleeting. Why is everyone vying to be happy all the time when you know every single emotion that you feel doesn’t work like that?

“Aim to be useful, feel like you have purpose.

“That’s the main thing, because I think when you give a man purpose and he feels he belongs somewhere, he’ll do the hard things.”

He works with business owners on mindset, delving deep into how they’re operating within their business. He believes a lot of business owners leave money, time and fulfilment on the table because they’re not operating as they should.

“So I help them make sure that they’re optimised to have a fulfilled life with purpose, and also be able to buy the experiences for themselves and their loved ones and to create a real impact.”

Above all, he helps clients confront their own self-belief.

“The lack of self-belief is the biggest killer for most guys. They know that something’s got to change, but they still doubt themselves. So for me, it’s coming into their life and seeing something in them that they can’t see for themselves.”

“You always get more from giving than getting it for yourself. Always.”

For those seeking guidance, Imthi offers not just advice, but the hard-won wisdom of someone who has lived every lesson he teaches. You can find him on Instagram and on his Legacy Podcast on YouTube.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.